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Apple Cheese Danish

"This is a great recipe and looks like it came from a professional bakery. It isn't hard--just a little time-consuming."

By allrecipes · From Open Recipes · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,501 recipes mention both. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

The recipe

18 pastries
Prep55 min
Cook20 min

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (204°C) and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

  2. Unroll the thawed puff pastry sheets on a lightly floured surface and cut them into 18 equal squares, then arrange them on the prepared sheets with space between.

  3. Toss the sliced apples with the lemon juice in a bowl so they do not brown.

  4. In a large bowl, beat the room-temperature cream cheese, cottage cheese, 1/2 cup sugar, egg and vanilla extract until smooth.

  5. Spoon a small amount of the cheese filling onto the center of each pastry square, leaving a border around the edges.

  6. Arrange a few apple slices on top of the filling on each pastry.

  7. Sprinkle the 3 tablespoons of sugar evenly over the apples and pastries.

  8. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes, until the pastry is puffed and golden and the filling is set to 160°F (71°C), then cool slightly before serving.

By allrecipes. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Apple + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,501 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Cottage cheese + cream cheesetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together77 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together35,031 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Cream cheese + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,934 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  5. Apple + cream cheesetop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together169 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

Sugar and vanilla share little aroma chemistry, yet 35,031 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Flavor stand-ins for the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cottage cheese, apple, cream cheese, sugar, egg, vanilla):

  1. Pineapplebetter flavor fit
  2. Strawberrybetter flavor fit
  3. Bananabetter flavor fit
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cottage cheese, apple, cream cheese, sugar, egg, vanilla. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).